By David Remnick

The greatest popular songs, whether its Aretha Franklin singing Respect or Bob Dylan performing Blind Willie McTell, have a way of embedding themselves in our memories. You remember a time and a place and a feeling when you hear that song again. In Holding the Note, David Remnick writes about the lives and work of some of the greatest musicians, songwriters, and performers of the past fifty years.

He portrays a series of musical lives and their unique encounters with the passing of that essential element of music: time. From Cohens performing debut, when his stage fright was so debilitating he couldnt get through Suzanne, to Franklins iconic mink-drop at the Kennedy Center, Holding the Note delivers a view of some of the greatest creative minds of our time written with a lifetimes passionate attachment to music that has shaped us all.